Crackpot Challenge Part 2 - Evolution

[Luke65]

You should just let the circuit boards evolve. I hear that it works much better than design.

You should know, I’ve tried that! I sat back and waited for the board to design itself - but nothing! Fortunately, it didn’t decay - devolve - thanks to error detection and correction, kind of like what DNA has!

Btw, I forgot to thank you for calling StA on his pointless and mean-spirited comments - so, thanks!

 

[hecd2]

Ooh, the axis the universe rotates on is “evil”! Of course, this is because the universe having an axis explodes the standard model of the Big Bang, which says that the universe has no center or edge and thus no axis. But, of course, Geocentrism predicts that the universe rotates on an axis, and that we would find that axis “roughly along that of our Galaxy”, in fact, right through the earth! Pretty good prediction, eh? I wonder what the odds are that the universe’s axis would run right through our own backyard - almost as if we’re in a “special place” in the universe! And, btw, there are other lines of evidence:

It seems that you don’t understand this paper (or the others quoted in it). How on earth is a tiny apparent asymmetry in the handedness of spiral galaxies with the asymmetry lying on a galactic latitude of 69 degrees (ie 21 degrees away from the North Galactic Pole), or a declination of 25 degrees in celestial coordinates, evidence for a rotating universe? How can any of the other departures from Gaussianity detected in WMAP CMB anisotropy data be possibly taken as evidence for a rotating universe, or any sort of cosmological axis passing through the earth (WMAP is at L2 anyway)? It can’t.

Geocentrism requires the entire universe to be rotating around the earth in the equatorial plane once per day. Any cosmological effects should therefore be aligned to the celestial poles with cylindrical symmetry. They aren’t.

By the way, Su and Chu, two of the authors cited in the Longo paper have constrained the rotation of the universe in the Robertson-Walker metric to be less than a billionth of a radian per year using the same non-Gaussian effects in the CMB anisotropy that you so gleefully latch on to. (Su and Chu, Is the Universe Rotating?, arXiv:0902.4575v2, 2009). That’s quite a lot different from 2 pi radians per day - in fact, more than 2 trillion times different.

Geocentrism is completely absurd, but refuting it is like flogging a pink unicorn.

Alec
evolutionpages.com/pink_unicorn.htm

 

[hecd2]

That is why evolution supporters come here. They refuse to mix religion and science but they do not hesitate to claim that science shows that this or that part of the Bible is wrong, which shows that their claims are false. If science cannot comment on the supernatural then they should not comment on the work of God or say things like, Well, you must not have interpreted your holy book right because science says this. Unless there is a Science of Interpreting Holy Books, and there isn’t, or peer reviewed papers doing the same, or commenting on God, and there aren’t, there is no way they can use ‘science’ to comment on the Holy Bible.

Sure I can, and I do. “No way” doesn’t enter into it. Where bible literalists make literal statements about the natural world based on the bible, then, using what we have learned through science, I can show that, in many cases, they are wrong.

Furthermore, I can use my knowledge of the natural world as one category of evidence (there are others) in arriving at my worldview, and I can publicise my worldview and seek to persuade others to my point of view using the same evidence (including what I know about the natural world) that persuaded me. I am entitled to do, and I do these things.

(By the way, although the latter is a perfectly legitimate activity, it’s not “doing science” which is why you won’t find it in university text books or research papers).

Alec
evolutionpages.com

 

[buffalo]

Sure I can, and I do. “No way” doesn’t enter into it. Where bible literalists make literal statements about the natural world based on the bible, then, using what we have learned through science, I can show that, in many cases, they are wrong.

Furthermore, I can use my knowledge of the natural world as one category of evidence (there are others) in arriving at my worldview, and I can publicise my worldview and seek to persuade others to my point of view using the same evidence (including what I know about the natural world) that persuaded me. I am entitled to do, and I do these things.

(By the way, although the latter is a perfectly legitimate activity, it’s not “doing science” which is why you won’t find it in university text books or research papers).

Alec
evolutionpages.com

You are welcome to. However you are not trustworthy because you a priori exclude anything beyond naturalism.

 

[hecd2]

You are welcome to. However you are not trustworthy because you a priori exclude anything beyond naturalism.

Wrong - a posteriori.

Ad hominem

Alec
evolutionpages.com

 

[StAnastasia]

In about every third or fourth post, you suggest that someone present a paper to a scientific conference. It seems that it really is important to you.

What is the point of trashing science on an obscure internet forum? If you have something worth saying about a scientific theory, by all means say it to the people who are in a position to effect change. Tell scientists directly that they are barking up the wrong tree. Tell theologians directly that the faith is in danger. Don’t hide your light under this bushel basket, where (to use another metaphor) you are merely “preaching to the choir.”

StAnastasia

 

[StAnastasia]

I reject bad science. You should too. There is a lot of bad science going around. Global warming is a good example.

Global warming isn’t a science, but it is a fact.

 

[ricmat]

What is the point of trashing science on an obscure internet forum? If you have something worth saying about a scientific theory, by all means say it to the people who are in a position to effect change.

Perhaps those scientists who are in a position to effect change actually feel more free to explore other options than they do in traditional “conferences” and such.

Or perhaps the objective of effecting change isn’t what life is all about (although it seems very important to you). “Effecting change” seems to me to be a subset of “desire for power” which, of course, is one of the 3 primary sources of temptation to do evil. I’ll also speculate that successfully effecting change is also related to inflating ones pride (not always, but sometimes perhaps).

Tell theologians directly that the faith is in danger.

OK - StA - your faith is in danger!

Don’t hide your light under this bushel basket, where (to use another metaphor) you are merely “preaching to the choir.”
StAnastasia

I’m glad at least that you went to mass today. Even though you claim the Catholic Church is sexist.

If this forum consisted only of preaching to the choir, there would be no controversy. There is certainly controversy here on CAF.

Perhaps this forum is more efficient place to see the light, than a conference where everybody already knows the “right” answers.

 

[buffalo]

Perhaps those scientists who are in a position to effect change actually feel more free to explore other options than they do in traditional “conferences” and such.

Or perhaps the objective of effecting change isn’t what life is all about (although it seems very important to you). “Effecting change” seems to me to be a subset of “desire for power” which, of course, is one of the 3 primary sources of temptation to do evil. I’ll also speculate that successfully effecting change is also related to inflating ones pride (not always, but sometimes perhaps).

OK - StA - your faith is in danger!

I’m glad at least that you went to mass today. Even though you claim the Catholic Church is sexist.

If this forum consisted only of preaching to the choir, there would be no controversy. There is certainly controversy here on CAF.

Perhaps this forum is more efficient place to see the light, than a conference where everybody already knows the “right” answers.

Why does StA spend so much time on an OBSCURE forum?

 

[ricmat]

Global warming isn’t a science, but it is a fact.

Global warming for the last few years has been global cooling. And there are many natural cycles of both warming and cooling which take place totally independent of man.

As a theologian, you should be very suspicious (IMHO) of any attempt to portray the very existence of “people” as a negative thing. The overpopulation scare has finally subsided now that we understand the negative demographic effects of it. So something else is needed by the bad guys to justify having less people. Global warming and the green movement have taken up the cause.

 

[Luke65]

It seems that you don’t understand this paper (or the others quoted in it). How on earth is a tiny apparent asymmetry in the handedness of spiral galaxies with the asymmetry lying on a galactic latitude of 69 degrees (ie 21 degrees away from the North Galactic Pole), or a declination of 25 degrees in celestial coordinates, evidence for a rotating universe?

Well I don’t know, Alec. So why don’t you explain to us why they call it an “axis”? Doesn’t an axis imply rotation? And if not, then why is it “evil”?

How can any of the other departures from Gaussianity detected in WMAP CMB anisotropy data be possibly taken as evidence for a rotating universe, or any sort of cosmological axis passing through the earth (WMAP is at L2 anyway)? It can’t.

What does this mean:

“apparent anomalies in the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe one-year, threeyear11, and five-year data12. For example, analyzing the one-year data, Land and Magueijo13 find an unlikely alignment of the low l multipoles and a correlation of azimuthal phases between l = 3 and l = 5 with an apparent axis (l, b) = (260°, 60°), an alignment they refer to as the “axis of evil”.”

They are interpreting the WMAP data to be revealing an axis, so why don’t you ask them?

Geocentrism requires the entire universe to be rotating around the earth in the equatorial plane once per day. Any cosmological effects should therefore be aligned to the celestial poles with cylindrical symmetry. They aren’t.

So let me get this straight. First you say this data doesn’t indicate anything, or at least not an axis of rotation. Then you essentially say that if it does indicate an axis then its off by 21 degrees. But what if the data does indicate an axis but the interpretation is off by 21 degrees? Or what if there are other unknown factors? How can you confidently say that this data doesn’t imply rotation, but at the same time confidently say it contradicts the rotation in Geocentrism?

By the way, Su and Chu, two of the authors cited in the Longo paper have constrained the rotation of the universe in the Robertson-Walker metric to be less than a billionth of a radian per year using the same non-Gaussian effects in the CMB anisotropy that you so gleefully latch on to. (Su and Chu, Is the Universe Rotating?, arXiv:0902.4575v2, 2009). That’s quite a lot different from 2 pi radians per day - in fact, more than 2 trillion times different.

Do I? Cool! And there you go again with that ridiculous rotating universe thing!

Geocentrism is completely absurd, but refuting it is like flogging a pink unicorn.

Now this I understand. Excellent analogy. You’re saying its very difficult to flog a pink unicorn, just like its very difficult to falsify Geocentrism, so you’re not even going to try! I don’t blame you.

Now, I’m once again impressed with your knowledge of science across the board. But I’m also again disappointed that you pretend that “there’s nothing to see here, folks, keep moving.” Why don’t you admit that this is a BIG story in cosmology? Why don’t you admit that if the universe does have an axis that it rotates on then the standard model of the Big Bang is demolished? And “Copernicanism” or the Cosmological Principle with it? And that this is much closer to what Geocentrism predicts than anything mainstream science predicted? Love the truth, Alec, its much more beautiful than the lie. :yup:

 

[StAnastasia]

Global warming for the last few years has been global cooling. And there are many natural cycles of both warming and cooling which take place totally independent of man…

Quite the contrary: global warming is accelerating to the point that the Arctic ocean may be ice free in a few years, and to the point that the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets begin to slide off, raising sea levels.

 

[cassini]

And the conclusions of the global scientific community are utterly irrelevant to us.

The demagogues of King Sci have sold out their souls for silver and gold, and abandoned the scientific method for myth-ods. The seven basic elements of the scientific world now are Time, Space, Matter, Energy, Power, Prestige, and Funding.

The naive public puts science leaders on a pedestal of objective purity, when they belong in the gutter along with the pols, lawyers and used car salesman.

How long can we ignore the fraud and fabrication of false reports in science that surround us?

Just yesterday we received this letter:

I am an “ex” scientist. I have over 100 publications in the field of materials science and physics. Many of these publications are in peer reviewed journals such as The Journal of the American Ceramic Society, Materials Research Society Journal and Journal of Applied Physics. I have sat on committees that review papers for these journals. I have worked at the following national laboratories: NIST, Oak Ridge and Brookhaven National Laboratory. I have spent 10 years living off of federally funded research. I have written winning proposals for government funding in the 10’s of millions of dollars. In short, I am very well aware of the process of getting and keeping funding and getting papers published in peer reviewed publications.

I

The modern science establishment has abandoned their standards for their own brand of symbolism: speculation …evidence was stated in prior posts.
Wherever modern science rejects the scientific method of Aristotle and Bacon and Popper, we reject their evidence as invalid.

This thread uses Sacred Tradition as a valid theological rule of evidence. The belief of the Fathers was that Genesis was to be read primo ad litteram.
The opinions of Biblical revisionists and modernists are not part of Sacred Tradition and so not a valid base of evidence.

AMDG
​

It is impossible to resist commenting on posts like this. On other threads I have been jeered and taunted by those telling me to submit my thesis for peer review. Perhaps now readers will see how this system works as described above by Alethios. With regard to ‘creation-science’, this too falls into the no, no, category just as Robert Gentry PhD lost his funding because of his discoveries of nuclear remains in the rocks that showed they did indeed form in one year (the Flood Of Noah) and his rejection of the expanding universe theory based on red-shifts is interpreted by other physicists as indicating a revolving universe not an expanding one. Perhaps the best documented discrimination against creation science and scientists is to be found in the book THE CRITERION written by Jerry Bergman PhD. in 1984. (Onesimus Publishing, Richfield, Minneosta USA.) The book summarises many shocking cases of academic discrimination against Professors and students who were known and sometimes only suspected of harboring the personal conclusion that creation science better conforms to the scientific data than does evolution. It demonstrates that most of higher education champions and values academic freedom only for liberal and humanistic causes and not for biblical Christian and conservative causes. Bergman chronicles evidences of religious persecution in America today. He himself, a highly respected, credentialed, and published professor, was denied tenure - and subsequently fired - admittedly because of his creationist beliefs and writings. He describes numerous other cases of the same treatment. " And these, I am convinced, are only the tip of the iceberg" says Bergman. " How many more cases are out there in which teachers are not hired, or are fired, students are failed, or their grades lowered, promotions are denied, admission to graduate programmes are refused, theses rejected, books or articles are denied publication, or scientific projects denied government funding simply because the evolutionary establishment does not believe in freedom [nor the Vatican these days it seems] and equal rights for creationists?"

Why even my own daughter was downgraded in one of her university exams for putting Christian morality first in a Child-care exam. This was isolated so that there was no doubt why she lost marks from a humanist examiner.

Perhaps that explains what I think of those of you who taunted me with not putting my thesis forward to these crooks for peer review.​

 

[hugh_miller]

Hey Hugh. Still chasing your “man prints”? Still dating ROCKS with carbon 14 techniques? Find any petrified batteries lately?

Peace

Tim

No petrified batteries Tim but every time I post scientific evidences that support the literal interpretation of Genesis 1-11 by church fathers, including Lateran IV, I rediscover the same “petrified brains” responding to my posts that “firmly believe” in the “fairy tale” of evolution of “life from rocks.” “Petrified brains” just don’t get it. Their only response is the same old technique of sarcasm.

Again, I post these evidences against evolution of “life from rocks” [the religion of the pagan God Mithras or evolution] and in favor of our church fathers; they are: {1) C-14 data for dinosaur bone collagen [collagen is NOT rock as evolutionist Mary Schweitzer reported in 2005 and earlier] in the range of 22,00 to 33,000 radiocarbon years for dinosaurs from Montana and Alaska; these dates confirmed previous research from ~1990 that suggested similar ages, but for dinosaur bone-bioapatite. (2) Dinosaur depictions by our ancestors from the studies of archaeologists world-wide and {3) fossil human footprints with dinosaurs in alleged fairy tale 108 million year old rock and reconfirmed by Cat-scan of the impressions in Cretaceous limestone.

There is no 12 million years between man and dinosaur [1925 version of long ages for the fairy tale of evolution] which has now “evolved” to 65 million years [as claimed by modern day believers in fairy tales]. What’s next, 225 million years between man and dinosaurs?

Blessed are they who believe and have not seen, such as our church fathers. Meanwhile Moses sizzles while Darwin fizzles.

 

[ricmat]

Quite the contrary: global warming is accelerating to the point that the Arctic ocean may be ice free in a few years, and to the point that the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets begin to slide off, raising sea levels.

The ice sheets slide off because they grow. Glaciers calf because they are growing. Even then only a small portion of the Antarctic is warming, the vast majority of it is cooling.

Even the ice thickness in the arctic is growing rapidly.

There have been numerous reports about “cooling, not warming” lately - perhaps you haven’t seen them. But keep an open mind and read those reports when you get a chance.

This subject is covered in depth on other threads, so we should probably drop it here.

 

[hugh_miller]

One of the hallmarks of science is the willingness to toss out existing ideas based on evidence that something else is a better explanation for observations. In other words, constant change. Does theology do that?

Ok, so when do we toss out the hypothesis of evolution of life from rocks based on modern scientific discoveries in genetics, sedimentology, paleontology, physics, C-14 dating of the fossils and archaeology?

When we outgas evolutionary double speak from our discussions we can return to the discussion of theology, the queen of science. The belief in the fairy tale of evolution of life from rocks is inhibiting the advancement of true science.

 

[hecd2]

hecd2:

It seems that you don’t understand this paper (or the others quoted in it). How on earth is a tiny apparent asymmetry in the handedness of spiral galaxies with the asymmetry lying on a galactic latitude of 69 degrees (ie 21 degrees away from the North Galactic Pole), or a declination of 25 degrees in celestial coordinates, evidence for a rotating universe?

Well I don’t know, Alec. So why don’t you explain to us why they call it an “axis”? Doesn’t an axis imply rotation? And if not, then why is it “evil”?

The problem you have is that you think an axis necessarily implies rotation but it doesn’t. Not all axes are axes of rotation - there are axes of symmetry, axes which define a co-ordinate system, axes which define direction and optical axes. In these cases it is being used as an axis of symmetry. The apparent CMB anisotropy alignments was called the axis of evil tongue-in-cheek by Joao Magueijo (if you know the guy, you’ll know he has a wicked sense of humour) - if it exists and its origin is cosmological rather than caused by noise or foreground then it is unexpected in the model of simple inflation, so the model will have to be refined to account for it. I’ll come back to it in a minute below where you ask me questions about it, because it is quite different from the Longo claim that you cited that there is an imbalance in the handedness of spiral galaxies within a redshift of 0.1 with an apparent axis of symmetry centred on the co-ordinates that I mentioned (nothing to do with the “axis of evil”, or rotation of the universe).

Luke65:

What does this mean:

“apparent anomalies in the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe one-year, threeyear11, and five-year data12. For example, analyzing the one-year data, Land and Magueijo13 find an unlikely alignment of the low l multipoles and a correlation of azimuthal phases between l = 3 and l = 5 with an apparent axis (l, b) = (260°, 60°), an alignment they refer to as the “axis of evil”.”

They are interpreting the WMAP data to be revealing an axis, so why don’t you ask them?

It means that there seems to be unexpected alignments between different multipoles of the CMB anisotropy. Do I need to explain what the CMB anisotropy is and what a multipole is? Pure Gaussianity, which is predicted by simple inflation, would result in random orientations of all the multipoles - there does seem to be some degree of alignment, particularly of quadrupole and octupole, after cleaning of the CMB maps and correction for foreground effects. The alignment is in the direction galactic longitude = 260 degrees, galactic latitude = 60 degrees which does not imply an axis of rotation (nor does it align, even approximately, with the celestial poles which define the axis of the earth’s rotation.)

Luke65:

hecd2:

Geocentrism requires the entire universe to be rotating around the earth in the equatorial plane once per day. Any cosmological effects should therefore be aligned to the celestial poles with cylindrical symmetry. They aren’t.

So let me get this straight. First you say this data doesn’t indicate anything, or at least not an axis of rotation. Then you essentially say that if it does indicate an axis then its off by 21 degrees. But what if the data does indicate an axis but the interpretation is off by 21 degrees? Or what if there are other unknown factors? How can you confidently say that this data doesn’t imply rotation, but at the same time confidently say it contradicts the rotation in Geocentrism?

I didn’t say the data didn’t indicate anything. I said that it is no evidence at all for the rotation of the universe about the earth or for geocentrism. Which it isn’t.

If geocentrism is correct, the entire universe has to rotate on an axis defined by the celestial poles (ie the line running through the north and south poles of the earth) once every 24 hours. We have already seen that the use of the word axis doesn’t imply rotation, but in any case, the axes of symmetry in these data don’t come near to the celestial poles. You are even getting your co-ordinates mixed up. The earth’s equatorial plane does not lie close to the galactic plane. The 21 degrees is the angle between the direction of the assymetry in the handedness of spiral galaxies and the galactic pole, not the earth’s pole. For alignment to the earth, you have to look in celestial coordinates, where, as I pointed out, the declination is 25 degrees (or 65 degrees away from the celestial pole). Not even close.

to be continued

 

[hecd2]

Luke65:

Do I? Cool! And there you go again with that ridiculous rotating universe thing!

Where have I said that universe rotation is a priori ridiculous? People are wrong when they say that GR excludes universe rotation. Some Bianchi models with rotation are proper solutions to the Einstein field equations but they are not physical, ie they do not predict what we see. However, Su and Chu constrained universe rotation in the Friedmann-LeMaitre-Robertson-Walker metric, which does predict what we see in terms of a flat universe, to less than a billionth of a radian per year, which, as I said, is more than 2 trillion times less than what geocentrism requires.

Luke65:

hecd2:

Geocentrism is completely absurd, but refuting it is like flogging a pink unicorn.

Now this I understand. Excellent analogy. You’re saying its very difficult to flog a pink unicorn, just like its very difficult to falsify Geocentrism, so you’re not even going to try! I don’t blame you. No I am saying that refuting geocentrism is like flogging an absurd mythical beast. I’ve already refuted it here:
evolutionpages.com/pink_unicorn.htm

Now, I’m once again impressed with your knowledge of science across the board. But I’m also again disappointed that you pretend that “there’s nothing to see here, folks, keep moving.” Why don’t you admit that this is a BIG story in cosmology?

I didn’t say “nothing to see here folks”. I said that none of this is evidence either for universe rotation or for geocentrism, which it isn’t and which you would easily see if you understood what you were reading. If there is anisotropy in the universe as a whole, then this might be big news, but there needs to be some consistency in the observations first (and the Longo data is only within z=0.1 and excludes data in the galactic plane). I don’t think you realise how tiny these anisotropic effects are - to the point where there is controversy about whether they even exist; and none of them line up with one another, so there isn’t much cosmology you can do with them at the moment. If, with even better CMBA data, say from Planck, there turns out be some asymmetry in the universe, it would be very interesting, and it might be revolutionary, but more likely it will mean refinement of current models.

Why don’t you admit that if the universe does have an axis that it rotates on then the standard model of the Big Bang is demolished?

Because it isn’t true.

And that this is much closer to what Geocentrism predicts than anything mainstream science predicted?

Not so. There is not a single thing here that either supports geocentrism or is predicted by it, which you would immediately see if you understood what you were reading.

Love the truth, Alec, its much more beautiful than the lie.

Of course, which is precisely why I reject absurd claptrap like geocentrism.

Alec
evolutionpages.com/pink_unicorn.htm

 

[cassini]

Luke 65, The physics the Copernicans love to dish out like a computer is all HELIOCENTRIC PHYSICS. True physics, that is a study of physics of all possible orders for the universe, ceased when the world of science went Newton’s way and then after the 1887 M&M experiment went Einstein’s way, that is, 100% trying to explain a heliocentric physics for the universe. So when these guys start using ‘physics’ to disprove geocentricism do not waste your time arguing with them because you cannot defend a geocentric position using heliocentric invented physics. There is currently no physics for a geocentric order - other than abstract offshoots of relativity - for the simple reason physicists never actually investigated the possibilities.

The geocentric position is that witnessed by all humanity. Thus for anyone to say it is claptrap is quite hard to believe, especially when it comes from men who seem quite intelligent. But it shows you the power, the ‘magic’, of the Devil’s formal heresy, in blinding the mind. What hecd2 basis his words and beliefs on is the physics in his head. He is willing to reject all the geocentric phenomena he sees every day of his life because of his beliefs in what Newtonians and Einsteinians tell the world.

Apart from the witness of the reality we see around us, there is the greater proof of divine revelation defined and declared by a Church decree. This geocentricism is of faith. Indeed a matter of faith cannot be proven or falsified by science or it ceases to be a matter of faith. Thus when the Church made it a matter of faith it placed the order of the universe outside science. This proved over the centuries to be correct for what they decreed as faith could never be proven or falsified by humanity. But like so many other heresies, man has the free will to reject these objects of faith. The Copernicans, like the evolutionists, place their FAITH in those unprovable and probably unfalsifiable ideas.

 

[grannymh]

This geocentricism is of faith.

Trying to make geocentricism or any part of science a part of the Catholic Faith would certainly be quite a challenge considering that the period of public Divine Revelation closed many centuries ago.